Create a booklet on your computer

Pages are arranged in saddle-stitch signatures: print double-sided, fold in half and staple. Free, unlimited, no uploads.

100% private: everything runs on your computer, your files never leave your device.

Upload your PDF - it opens locally on your computer
The booklet imposition is computed automatically
Print double-sided (flip on short edge), fold and staple

What Booklet does

Booklet reorders the pages of a PDF so that when you print it double-sided, fold the stack down the middle and staple the fold, you get a booklet that reads in the right order. That reordering is called imposition, and getting it wrong by one page is what makes home-made booklets come out scrambled.

The output is landscape A4 with two pages side by side on each face. The order is the saddle-stitch one: the last page sits next to the first, the second next to the second from last, and so on inwards. Fold the printed stack in half and the pages fall into place.

Because a folded sheet always holds four pages, the document is padded up to the next multiple of four. A twenty-two page document becomes twenty-four, with two blanks at the end where nobody notices them.

How to turn a PDF into a booklet

Add the PDF. It opens locally and the layout screen appears with the number of double-sided sheets the booklet will need.
Choose Booklet. The imposition is worked out for you; there is nothing to configure.
Download the result. It carries the suffix _booklet.
Print it double-sided, flipping on the short edge, then fold the stack in half and staple the fold.

What to get right when printing

The file is correct the moment it downloads. Almost everything that goes wrong from here is a print dialogue setting, so it is worth checking these four before you commit a stack of paper.

Print double-sided with the flip on the short edge. Flipping on the long edge turns every second face upside down.
Print at actual size, not fit to page. The sheets are already A4 and scaling them again adds a white border and shrinks the text.
Do not let the printer apply its own booklet or multiple-pages-per-sheet setting. The pages are already imposed, and doing it twice scrambles them.
Fold the whole stack together, not sheet by sheet, and staple through the fold.
The pages keep an eighteen point margin around the outside and a twelve point gutter down the middle, so nothing disappears into the fold.
Text stays text: the pages are embedded rather than rendered, so the booklet is still selectable and prints at full sharpness.

Privacy: the imposition happens in your browser

The document is read, reordered and written back inside your browser tab. It is never uploaded, and no page is sent anywhere to be processed. The only download is OléPDF's own code from its own domain.

Close the tab and the only copies of the document are the ones on your disk.

Typical uses

Printing a programme, a menu or a short guide as a folded A5 booklet.
Turning a manual into something that can be read and stapled rather than shuffled loose.
Making a handout for a workshop without sending anything to a print shop.
Producing a rehearsal or reading copy of a score or a script that has to hold together.

Frequently asked questions

Is making a booklet free?

Yes. Turning one PDF into a booklet at a time is free and unlimited, with no account and no watermark. Processing several documents in a single run requires the 7-Day Pass or Pro.

What if my document does not have a multiple of four pages?

It is padded to the next multiple of four with blank pages, added at the end. A folded sheet always carries four pages, so there is no way around it, but the blanks land where they are least noticed.

Why do the pages look out of order in the PDF?

Because they are meant to. Page one of the file is the outside of the fold, which carries the last page next to the first. Once you print double-sided and fold the stack, everything reads in order.

Which double-sided setting do I need?

Flip on the short edge. The long-edge setting is the usual default for ordinary documents and it will turn every second face upside down.

What page size does the booklet come out at?

Landscape A4 sheets, each holding two pages. Folded in half, that gives you an A5 booklet.

Is my document uploaded?

No. The imposition runs on your computer inside the browser tab, and the PDF never reaches a server.

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